


Stewards of their Excellence

by seepingout



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2013-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-30 11:09:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seepingout/pseuds/seepingout





	Stewards of their Excellence

Sometimes she looks at Barnie and feels a bit sad. Barnie is strong and kind and gentle and patient and smart and a thousand more things but also, it seems, alone. She hopes someday that Barnie finds someone, a woman who adores her or a man who worships her, as long as they take care of her because few people deserve it as much as Barnie.

She's thought, once or twice, about being that for Barnie, because she knows Barnie would take care of her and she would take care of Barnie, but she doesn't feel the right way and it would be unfair to both of them. Barnie doesn't share much of herself, her private life truly private even with the team, but sometimes she lets slip things that make her think Barnie does have someone, but it's rare and she's pretty sure it's not the same person every time. 

In many ways she feels worse for her because everyone has someone on the team they're especially close to except Barnie. Christie has Boxxy and Abby, Sydney has Mewis, Barnie has .... Reece. Barnie is great with Reece, which she knows Christie appreciates, and Reece adores Barnie, but Reece is a toddler and it's not really the same thing, especially because the Rampone kids don't always come along. Everyone respects Barnie, likes her, thinks she's the smartest one on the team, but they don't really just hang out with her unless Banana Grams or Crosswords are involved. She's guilty of it too, she knows that.

She's known Barnie for years, before they were teammates, when Barnie was Coach Barnie but didn't insist upon the title. She's seen Barnie smile and she's seen her happy and she's never seen her sad or upset, but Barnie's always been good about being the calm, even one and she isn't sure that Barnie isn't just that good at hiding it. Sometimes, when she was still a student, before the draft, she wondered if Barnie volunteered at Stanford for the company as much as the soccer. 

She thinks of Barnie going home to a cabin in the woods of Pennsylvania and always pictures her alone. She knows Barnie has family, plenty of it, but family has lives of their own and can't always be around.

She also feels sorry for Barnie getting so close and running into the curse of being second best. She's good enough to be a starter and star on any other national team but she has the misfortune of being born in the same country at the same time as Hope Solo. She had a small taste herself when she first joined the team, of putting in the work and the time and the energy just to spend your games sitting on a bench watching everything move around you, knowing you weren't going to be put in. It was painful for her, so painful she agreed to a complete 180, she can't imagine how bad it must be for Barnie dealing with it every game, year after year. She'd never wish ill on anyone, much less a teammate, but a part of her was happy for Barnie when Hope got injured because it meant the world got a chance to see how good Barnie is.

She also knows, and is sure Barnie knows but probably doesn't care, that even if Hope weren't the best, if Barnie proved she deserved to be in the goal every time, that Barnie would never get the recognition that Hope does. Media likes a pretty face and while Barnie isn't anywhere near unattractive, she doesn't have a feminine build and her features aren't close to what the media has been selling as desirable, not the same way Hope does. Abby got away with it and was in the spotlight for so long because she was Mia's protege and she produced and there really wasn't anyone who could compete with her. She knows, everyone knows, that now Abby isn't getting the offers she once did and it has nothing to do with her age and everything to do with Alex and Sydney and even Christen. They're all more media ready than Abby could have ever hoped to be by fact of genetics granting them the right bodies and faces as well as the right skills. She knows even if there had never been Hope at all, even if Barnie was the best in the world with no competition on the pitch or in front of a camera, Barnie wouldn't be a media darling. The media only accepts so many larger, more androgynous women, and Abby claimed that spot.

She's never heard Barnie complain. Never seen even a hint of resentment for her place in the team or the fact that everyone around her is getting married or having kids or both and even though she's older than a lot of the team now, she isn't. Sometimes she thinks that that may be the greatest tragedy of Barnie. That Barnie is all these good things and humble besides and she will never get the credit she deserves for any of it. Not for her skills, not for her support, not for her calm acceptance of the hand life has dealt her (probably the rarest skill in the world).

And she's a little mad that she feels sad for Barnie. Barnie deserves better than pity, even pity with the best thoughts and intentions. It's not Barnie's fault that the world seems intent on passing her by. So she does little things. Because Barnie deserves more and after the shared years at Stanford, and the Gold Pride, and the national team she's in a better position than most to be something for Barnie. Even if it's less than Barnie deserves.


End file.
